


brokenness is a work of art

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother Feels, Gen, Introspection, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Loki’s ambivalence about going to Earth isn’t really about Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Even though there are no ways of knowing for sure, there are ways of knowing for pretty sure.” For kleine-kapitan. This started life as a Valki fic, and then sort of morphed into a pre-Valki something, idk. 
> 
> If you're on Tumblr, please follow me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/) for more fanfic stuff, and at [aflinley.tumblr.com](https://aflinley.tumblr.com/) for original writing and stuff I'm legally not allowed to talk about on AO3. Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

"You seem to spend an awful lot of your time staring out of windows." 

Loki waited for a second or two, to recompose himself, before turning and looking over his shoulder at the unexpected guest joining him on the _Statesman's_ observation deck. "There aren't many people who can sneak up on me," he said, with a rueful little smile on his lips. 

"And it surprises you, coming from me, that what you're saying?" Valkyrie took a healthy drink from the green tumbler in her hand and gestured to the window. "So? What're you plotting?" 

"'Plotting,'" Loki repeated, his tone laced with distaste... and not just for the accusation. She smelled as if she'd been swimming in six different kinds of cheap booze, and they'd only had breakfast an hour ago.

"Sure. Your sort's always plotting." 

He narrowed his eyes. "And by 'my sort', you mean...?" he prodded, not really wanting to poke at the still-sore issue but needing to know. He was already apprehensive enough about their destination; he didn't need an old veteran of the Fimbulwinter harassing him for his heritage and opening old festering wounds every time they spoke. 

He was perfectly capable of doing that himself, thank you.

Valkyrie shrugged and came over to join him before the wide, transparent panel set into the side of the ship. "Second sons. Younger siblings. Tricksters."

A little of Loki's tension melted. "Do you speak from experience?"

"I had a lot of younger sisters, once." 

Loki bit slightly at his lower lip and turned back to his contemplation of deep space. Of the Void...

It would have been better if it could just ignore it, and go about his daily tasks and forget that the only thing standing between him and the vast cosmic horror that was open space was a giant metal tube full of refugees, alcohol, and sex dungeons, but he couldn't. Dwelling on the positives had never been his strongest attribute.

The nightmares had faded somewhat, since his release from prison (in that cell, white and gold and sterile, they had actually gotten worse), but the moment Hela turned his own dagger on him and flung him from the Bifrost, they had come roaring back. Endless hours of nothing, days, years, centuries, until he woke in terror in his bed in the Grandmaster's palace, unable to move or scream, unable even to feel where he stopped and the bed began, and the unceasing parade of drink and drugs that the decadent lunatic pressed on him, that he would have done his best to turn down at any other time, were a balm from Valhalla. 

He hadn't been in space since his last arrival on Earth, and he would have gladly remained on solid ground for the rest of his existence. Only Korg had noticed how he hummed like a live wire when the _Statesman_ first left Sakaar, and he had attributed it to the aftereffects of the obedience disc. 

But that trip had been mercifully brief. The trip to Earth could take as long as a year, and that was the best outlook. 

Loki felt like nothing so much as one massive exposed nerve ending. 

And, with a lurch in his gut, he realized that he very much missed all the Grandmaster's drugs.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I wasn't aware I was obliged to provide a response. You're the one who barged in on me."

"It's a public space."

"Perhaps I'm thinking of things that shouldn't be aired in public. Or ever," he added, before he could stop himself.

Valkyrie looked at him sideways and sipped her drink. 

_Damn._

"If that was an invitation to pry, you're out of luck. Find someone else to tell your troubles to."

"So you were just passing by and decided to waltz in here to make polite day-drinking conversation?" She raised her eyebrows at his snide tone, and suddenly Loki felt about two inches tall. He gulped and managed not to look away, but it was an effort. "I'm not plotting."

"Uh huh."

"I'm not. I'm... considering."

"Considering what?"

"My best options for when we reach Earth." It wasn't exactly the truth, but neither was it exactly a lie, which made it the best kind of lie. "I have to have some sort of contingency plan. Thor is so damned certain that I won't be immediately arrested and put in prison, or worse, sent to some secure military facility and dissected."

"...Midgardians are clearly a lot more impressive than I remember."

"They're _not_."

"You're scared of them."

"I—" Loki stopped short, breath coming a little too quickly. "I'm frightened of some of them," he admitted, "yes. Less of what they might do to me, and more of what demands they might make of Thor, in exchange for letting our people settle there."

"You think he'd turn you over to them?"

"It...would be the logical choice. It's what I'd do."

Valkyrie snorted into her drink. "You are so full of shit, it's a miracle you can even see where you're going. Thor's not just going to give you up."

"How can you possibly be so certain of that?"

She shrugged. "How can you not be?"

"He's left me for dead before," Loki snapped. He felt cornered and his chest hurt, as though there was something weighing down his rib cage. 

"From what I've heard, you let go the first time, and you seemed pretty damned dead the second time. And the third time, you'd literally just tried to sell him for a bounty. But he keeps trying to hang on to you, so I don't see why this time should be any different."

"He's a sentimental idiot and a fool. He's king now, he's got no business putting my life before those of his people."

"Even if that's what you really want him to do?"

The weight on his chest went from painful to paralyzing, and Loki could do nothing to stop it, as his lungs and eyes burned and his hands trembled uncontrollably in their green-and-black gauntlets. His gaze locked on the blackness outside the ship, and he felt himself falling, always falling, in every direction at once. And there was no one to catch him...

Valkyrie frowned and started to reach for his arm, and then stopped. He saw her out of the periphery of his vision and was bizarrely grateful. He felt if he were touched, he would shatter. 

But he wanted someone to catch him... didn't he?

He stood there for centuries, it seemed. Unable to move, unable to breath, tears slipping down his cheeks and snagging on his lips, and no one came. No one came to find him. He was alone, again, as always, forever.

"Brother."

A warm, callused hand took gentle hold of the side of his neck, and finally Loki breathed. 

"I... wasn't sure you'd come."

Thor smiled and pulled him, carefully, as though he was something fragile and precious, into a hug. 

"You've only got to ask, brother. Whatever you need. I'm not giving you up again."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In trying to reassure his brother, Loki reveals one of his deepest fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was *cough* compelled to continue this fic. Yes, let's go with that.
> 
> TW for mild self-harm.
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

“Did the Valkyrie send you to find me?” Loki asked, tense under Thor’s touch. His prideful instinct to pull away was at odds with his body’s determination to remain as close to his brother as possible. 

Thor shook his head; the movement rubbed his beard against Loki’s hair, creating a slight static discharge, almost imperceptible, but Loki felt it. It snapped through him, tingling and tickling, and then it was gone. “She told me where you were, but I was already on my way to find you.”

“Why?”

Thor swallowed, and held Loki closer. “You’ll think me a fool.”

“Thor, don’t be ridiculous. How is that different from every other moment of our existence?”

“...I wanted to make sure you were still here,” Thor said. “That I wasn’t imagining you, that your presence here wasn’t some cruel dream.”

“Oh, well.” Loki twitched his shoulders irritably to make his brother release him, which Thor did, if somewhat reluctantly. “Unfortunately, I am in fact here, in the flesh, if not...”

If not in spirit.

He turned away from Thor’s single blue eye, too much like Odin’s. It saw too much. Too much or not enough, never the correct amount. “You wanted me back. Well, you got me. I’ve nowhere else to run to, at the moment, so you can put your fears to rest. I won’t be vanishing out from under your nose again any time soon.”

“Loki, having you at my side once more is perhaps the greatest gift I could ever ask for.”

His gentle low voice rumbled through Loki’s blood and bones. “I missed you, too,” Loki said softly, nails absently digging at his palm. “Even when I hated you, I loved you. Even when I tried to kill you, I regretted the attempt in the same moment... Sickening, isn’t it?” 

“No, that sounds about right for you.” Thor’s smile was lopsided but fond, and his gaze clung to Loki with a depth of emotion that Loki swore he could feel on his skin. “You’ve never been the sort to be satisfied with being all one thing or all the other.”

Loki let out a huff and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, which were swollen and sore from crying. Strange, how far away those tears had felt. So chilly on his face and so very distant from his body... or perhaps it was _he_ who was the faraway one. “Yes. Being all things to all people... it hasn’t worked out especially well for me, has it?”

“That’s not...”

“To Father, I was a wasted bargaining chip. Oh, I tried to be more. I tried to be like you, the golden child, the pride of Asgard. And perhaps sometimes, he even approved of me. But I wasn’t the son he wanted because he’d never intended to think of me as a son. Not until the end.”

“He loved you, Loki. He did.”

“Oh, maybe. Maybe... but only after he destroyed me, and after I destroyed myself to win his affections. Strange, how terrible I am at actually dying but how really fucking talented I am at destroying major civilizations.” Thor scowled but Loki careened on blithely. “You should _see_ what Jotunheim looks like now, and as to Earth, well... No,” he frowned, “I take it back. They’re destroying themselves perfectly well without my help. If anything, I merely lent a small hand—” 

He broke off and tensed expectantly, glancing warily at Thor out of the corners of his eyes, waiting for him to take the obvious opening and plunge straight on ahead and bring up the countless deaths that Loki had caused, on Jotunheim, on Earth, within all the realms, _wanting_ Thor to try and lay that burden on Loki’s shoulders so that Loki would have a semi-decent excuse to lash out.

But Thor was having none of it. “If this is your attempt to goad me into a rage, brother, it’s not working.”

“...Damn you.”

Thor smiled and folded his arms. “As I said: predictable.”

“ _Fuck_ you. And fuck your precious Earth, while I’m at it. Not that it’s worth another attempt, but I’ve no doubt your avenging companions will assume otherwise.”

“Well, you can’t really blame them for that. Not to worry, though, brother: I have their respect and their trust. We’ll be fine.”

“You will be fine. What remains of Asgard will be fine. I? Will not be fine. If I’m very lucky, I’ll be allowed to remain in one piece, but even that seems like a far-flung possibility.” Loki turned his back on his brother and stared resolutely out the window. At the speed the ship was moving, it was impossible to see anything outside but blackness. No stars, no light, no direction... 

No hope. 

He called a discreet dagger into his hand and dug the tip into the meat of his palm, in the thickest part below the base of the thumb. It hurt, which was good. He sent the dagger away again and clenched his fist, feeling the blood well out and drip down his wrist and under the cuff of his sleeve. 

“You worry over nothing,” Thor said, after a moment. “I will not allow any harm to come to you.”

“‘You will not allow.’ Such filial determination.” The smile that ghosted across Loki’s lips was small and sincere. “You would stand between me and Earth’s mightiest heroes?”

“I would stand between you and all the armies of Earth and all the hordes of Hel,” Thor vowed. “No one shall take you from me again, brother. This, I swear.”

Loki sighed, and again, his eyes felt the far-off sting of tears. Why didn’t they feel as though they belonged to him? They were his sorrows, were they not? Or was he not worthy of even the allowance of tears? His blood was his to shed, but apparently not his sorrows. “I almost believe you. But we both know the truth.”

“The truth...?”

“Of course. The truth of ruling. That fundamental reality that you once accused me of not comprehending.” Loki raised a hand to his cheek to wipe away the salty tracks, and found his wrist engulfed by Thor’s fingers. He looked up into his brother’s face, saw the stricken expression, and because he could not seem to weep properly, he smiled. “I will be the price for our people’s safe landing on Midgard. And you _will_ give me up, Thor. You might think otherwise, you might swear to slay anyone who lays a hand on me... but in the end? Measured against the survival of a realm, even I know I’m expendable. Oh, I don’t hold it against you. It’s just... good politics. Good for business.”

“ _No._ ”

“Thor.” Loki tipped his head to one side, studying his brother’s face, and then touched Thor’s cheek, tracing his fingertips along the outside of the gold-veined black eye patch. “It’s the only way they’ll ever let you settle there. And Odin must have known that, or else why would he have suggested it? It’s... it’s all right.”

“It’s not all right – _you’re_ not all right.”

“Well, no one’s going to debate that.”

“You can’t seriously believe that I’d just turn you over without a fight—”

“No, not really.” Loki let his fingers drift across the bristle of shorn hair at Thor’s temple, wondering why he was doing this. Thor was always Thor, no matter what he looked like, hair or not. Eye or not. Mjolnir or not. And Loki was always Loki. 

If only he could remember who Loki was supposed to be. 

“Not without a fight. But eventually, yes. For the sake of our people. I know it’s not what a hero would do. There’s nothing glorious about it. But it’s what a king would do. And unfortunately, if you want this shipful of stonemasons and seamstresses and small children to survive, you’ve got to put the hero aside.” He pressed his lips to Thor’s temple, feeling the prickle of hair and the power humming beneath his skin, and glad of a chance to sense the life of another when his own existence seemed so dark and distant. “I always thought you’d be a terrible king. Prove me wrong.”

Then he pulled back, and gazed at Thor with wide, terrified eyes. “Brother? When they take me... don’t let them put me underground.”


End file.
